


Nocturne - Cadenza

by FlyingPendragon



Series: Nocturne [1]
Category: Final Fantasy IX
Genre: Body Division, Dissociation, M/M, agalmatophilia, autoeroticism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:15:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26171803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingPendragon/pseuds/FlyingPendragon
Summary: After the events of Final Fantasy IX, Kuja returns to what he believes to be a state of normalcy----with a deadly game waiting for him.
Relationships: Kuja/Amarant Coral, Kuja/Trance Kuja
Series: Nocturne [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1900582
Kudos: 1





	Nocturne - Cadenza

  
  


_ I see you, little dove. You didn't think you could get away from me, did you?  _ Crystal walls reflected a Genome in his prime, silvery hair moving with the wind around him.  _ Oh no, you can't get away from me. _ Violet-tinged fingers reached for the nearest, claws scratching its mirrored surface.  _ What did Garland tell you would happen if you stopped breathing? He'd destroy you? Lucky boy.... And you thought you could end me. _

"I don't think so," his hunter purred. "There's no escaping me. When you slew Terra, you trapped several people in the dimension you thought you destroyed...." Nothing but tailed husks now, of manamortam and Mist-strewn blood he'd leeched from their veins.

"You have a choice, Kuja.... You can either surrender to me and my will, accept my mastery over you...or I can  _ kill  _ you, and master all of Gaia."

Trance Kuja's lips parted in a cruel grin. "Oh yes, dove...We're going to have a  _ delightful _ time."

  
  


** Nocturne - Cadenza **

  
  


_ His dreams had not been comfortable ones. After his preservation by Necron, rescue by Tantalus, and return to normalcy through a hard-won pardon, Kuja had come to feel very strange. _

He couldn't precisely say his life was unpleasant. True, abandoning sybaritic excess seemed a total inversion of what he'd been as a person, but maybe this was the point. Like everything else he needed now, maturity couldn't be bought. Giving himself leave to discover concepts like this had tempered him.

Though he felt the heat of the crucible more these days, and wasn't sure why. Where he sat in thought this afternoon, poring over Garland's books and specific formulae, he sighed; boredom was something he'd have to grow accustomed to. At least he didn't have to deal with the enmity of his former self, and the instability Trance had thrust upon him. Had all of them felt like they were separating inside, as though there was a distinctly  _ altered  _ being inside of them?

_ What rot. It was just the experience of ultimate power,  _ Kuja told himself,  _ the kind I wasn't meant to have. The souls I absorbed to reach that peak simply dissipated from me. _ Another magic altogether, even as he pondered the idea of Mist and Lich's Heart having remained in Vivi's body in negligible amounts. If that were so, a massive influx of mana could bring him back.  _ The other mages as well....  _ A thread of guilt wound tightly around his innards there; he had to fulfill his promise to them one way or another.

He'd sat in thought so long he barely felt a hand on his back——Garnet, the dear thing she was. She looked over his work without a word.

"I'm trying to find out how to bring him back."

She nodded. "It would be nice if you did...he said a lot about you in those last hours of his, and none of it was expected." Poor child.

"You don't read Terran, do you?" He moved over on the bench to allow her to sit with him. "Their older pictograms aren't hard to understand, but the writing changes a lot of their meaning."

"Garland wrote these."

"His work was revolutionary, but he went about it the wrong way entirely. This one was a journal of how he made me...." The drawings there showed where the old man had excised certain organs, added size to others.... In defiance of current human and Genome evolution, Kuja had four extra molars, and had at one point possessed organ systems exclusive to Garnet and her fairer lot. "And after my accidental reproduction, through chemicals Bran Bal had but Gaia doesn't, he removed——" Here, the notation where they'd been surgically disconnected, pulled through Kuja's body, and the offending chamber scarred shut. "Humans and other dimorphic species (heavens, Genomes themselves, later) didn't have this kind of assignment. It looks as though Garland couldn't decide what he wanted me to be."

"It makes sense from a visual aspect, Kuja, you're truly epicene. One can't really be sure what you are at first blush."

He allowed himself a moment of mirth. "No one would've guessed you were a summoner, either."

"You seem almost pensive.... Like you're waiting for something to happen." Did she know what he was worrying over, whenever he had a spare moment? He still hadn't had the courage to ask anyone. "Whatever's troubling you?"

He shook his head. "Trance was an experience all its own. The disconnect, like I was not one but  _ two  _ beings...."

"...Two, Kuja? I don't understand."

"No?" This didn't bode well for the chill in his blood. "When I ingested those souls.... I felt an immediate disconnect. Like half of me had taken them and my body, and mutated me into another self altogether."

"I had never felt something like that. Reaching Trance was merely my energies overwhelming me.... Never another form within my own."

His blood couldn't warm. Neither could the rest of him anymore. "But mightn't it be a condition within Trance?"

"I'll find the texts on Trance as a managenic subtype, but this doesn't sound typical. Rather, it worries me...." She rose to her feet. "Stay here. I'll get the books and ask whomever I happen to see among our group...this does not sound normal, Kuja. Neither was your method of ascent to begin with."

"I don't like the sound of this." He pulled a fresh sheet of vellum in her wake, and worriedly began to calculate.

  
  


-

  
  


_ More mana. The luscious leak of life through the dungeons, varying strengths and states of crystal. Trance slid one feather-downy hand down a block, felt it shift beneath his hand. Poor comfort for now..., but here, his fingers curved, manipulated, drew a mage from prismatic manamortam. Thinner face than his, softer features. Thready lashes in half-hooded eyes, mouth frozen open to him. Moving subtly, reflecting his energy back in an almost breathing warmth.... _

_ Two fingers shoved into those lips, formed teeth and tongue, a long, winding depth behind them...and now its neck with the other hand, sculpting flawlessly as though crystal were clay. Smooth muscles, perfect skin.... Tender-looking form. Sleek belly——lissome limbs, that dissonant hip girdle.... And here, that endless path inside wound around itself, spooling low before it emerged. _

_ He wrapped his arms around the replica, felt the softly moving form.... Not quite the same. Naturally mute, unable to scream...it wouldn't struggle. It wouldn't cry, couldn't plead for its life, and though it were warm it'd never bleed. Gauzy ripples formed long, lovely hair——but if he pulled, it'd stretch, not break at the root. Hands smaller but very like his moved upward at his urging, covered that bare, reflective chest. _

_ He saw his own perfection in the slope of that breakable back as he paced, watched his own eyes as his hands cupped and sculpted perfectly firm nates. From behind he stretched a tail; before, his fingers plied young manhood from the mana. Kneeling gained the creature legs, but stopped it still at feet...wouldn't do to let it run away. _

_ A masterpiece stood thralled before him. The very closest he could come to sculpting his gracious host, who would be here shortly...or as soon as he could open the portal and lure Kuja in. _

Just like you lured Zidane,  _ he recalled, laughing low. The replica turned to look at him. "Oh, you lovely thing. You need mana to be able to survive.... You're almost a leech that way. But I'm sure I can feed you——" _

_ Trance grabbed his plaything by the head, drew it close. His warmth was leaving it quickly. "I think I know just how to get him here," the malevolent Genome decided, "and I'll have an exquisite time while I do." A burst of crystal behind him flattened out, settled into an almost liquid softness at its peak. "I've been on my feet all day...you understand." _

_ The crystal-Kuja cocked its head. Mindless to the point of beauty...form sleepy with the effort to remain stable. Looking at his own craftsmanship fired his blood. _

_ "Come here," he murmured, seating himself in that soft-filled crystal shell. A bit larger...there. Perfect. And now a pair of feet for the poor thing, wound between with chains. "Right here. I have more than enough mana for you. You'll have to suck it out yourself, but it shouldn't be a problem for you, lovely boy." _

_ No, there wasn't any pause as the finest piece of art he'd ever seen knelt between his thighs, stroked him mechanically to life. Trance sighed, leaned back into the touch...and when those lips parted around his cock, taking it to the hilt, he thought of the very breakable creature behind them and gripped that silky head. _

_ "There you are, you sweet thing. Don't stop for a moment...." _

  
  


-

  
  


They had all been consulted, and none of them could give him any hope. Kuja hadn't thought they could; this appeared to be his burden alone.

_ hello there, kuja _

He blinked. Fingers pressed to his temples.

_ i see you _

"No," he managed, the whisper quivering in his throat. "It can't be...."

_ oh no? you know the feeling you had back there. you can't think you simply lost them. _

He had. But he'd been wrong...heaven help him, things were about to get worse for Gaia. And he was the cause of it all.  _ No. You can't be a separate entity.... This is impossible.... _

_ you poor, poor boy. you know things have changed, don't you? you'll have to come and find me if you want it to stop.... _

_ What do you want from me?!  _ His nails dug into his scalp on either side, trying to shake him free of this. He had to get away....

_ oh, so you're reverting to your former self. you think you can offer me anything...my avarice is eternal, kuja. there's only one thing you can give me to prevent gaia from dying in its own blood. _

_ What the hell do you want? _

_ only you. refuse and i'll murder everything you love...they'll see your face when they die. and i think i'll start with your little mage.... i think i can get him to scream before i waste him to ashes. have you ever wondered what his violent death would sound like? _

His blood curdled. He already knew what it sounded like...he remembered it from Garland's tortures.  _ Leave him alone, you bastard. _

_ only if you come. you have three days, kuja...if you aren't here by then, the bloodbath will begin. _

Panic gripped the edges of his mind, bone-deep.  _ And I assume you want me to come alone. _ The very thing he would've insisted on if it were him in control...he knew the pace of villainy far too well.

_ you aren't a novice to the game, i see. nothing will keep you from me, and whoever you attempt to bring will be the first sacrifice. three days, dove...by nightfall of the third i expect you here. _

By nightfall. He had that long to figure out what to do...if Trance didn't plan to deceive him. Three days was tense but reasonable.  _ Two full from now....  _ And night was rapidly approaching.

_ good boy. garland taught you well...i shall await you through the portal. if you cannot open it, the gates of your personal hell will reunite us. sleep while you can. _

He wouldn't be doing any of that.

_ oh! and one more thing. it'll seem a trial. _

_ Come unarmed. Tell no one. _ Yet another rule he knew by heart.

_ you sweet thing. you're playing just right...no cheating, now. i'll be waiting for you....... _

Trance faded, as did that gripping dissociation. But now, Kuja had another problem on his hands...and all the calculations he could make, all the wisdom he consulted, wouldn't solve a mote of it.

How could he fulfill all of the demonic Genome's demands, and return to Gaia  _ alive? _

  
  


-

  
  


The mage had been silent all night, as though muted by a spell. Freya gave him a look; his heart beat far too fast for his nature, and he looked to be in pain. Though how she knew....

"Kuja looks  _ vulnerable, _ somehow," Beatrix murmured behind her. "He's cringing, and his heart's racing like he's running from someone." So the knight's animal senses weren't the only ones he was naked to.

"He isn't eating, either." How bleak that they could speak together, over Kuja, of all people. "Do you think he's sick?"

"What would sicken  _ him?" _

He turned in his seat away from them——looked over everyone in the room, a desperate coldness in his eyes. Almost as though they were condemned to a fate he had signed them to.... Barely catching eyes with Freya was enough to turn him away, one hand digging its nails into his head. The fingers of his other had ragged, gnawed nails and raw fingertips. He'd been chewing them to the quick over something. The same misery in his eyes, she guessed. They looked moist and despondent.

"Something wrong, lad?" One heavy hand settled on his shoulder; only Steiner had had the courage to ask. "You look ill...."

"I'm fine. Please don't speak any more of it."

Freya's heart bled. He was certainly not 'fine'. How else to explain how his detached but friendly tone had descended to  _ this?  _ He looked as though she imagined her own behavior had been, in Cleyra where she'd seen Fratley for the first time in five years....

"...He's in mourning," she realized quietly.

Beatrix sat stiffly upright. "Mourning. Whom?" Not Vivi; he'd done that in the village. And if he were glancing at them, unable to say why....

"Himself. Kuja is going to die...or we will, from what he fails to accomplish."

The Genome sighed, rose from his seat to set his untouched plate on the table. Not even his wine had been drunk. He gave a last look to the group, sadly shook his head, and turned...limp from feathers to tail as he departed the room.

"That's it." Freya pushed herself away from the table as well. "I must learn what is wrong with him."

Eiko looked up as she passed. "Tell us what it is?"

  
  


-

  
  


"All the fucking hells."

He'd been sitting there and couldn't tell them. He might never see them again, but he couldn't tell them. And Freya Crescent, that shrewd and lovely rat, she'd known something was amiss....

Steiner had comforted him. If only he  _ knew! _

Angrily, he shoved his clothes back into the chest of drawers at his bedside. "Why must it be this way?  _ Why?!" _

_ why?  _ Did he have to be here?  _ those are the rules. i can't stop them from following you, but you'd better hope they don't. i'll kill them all. they were no match for us, and wouldn't be now. you know that. they don't even have enough power to be a challenge anymore...it will be bloody and terrible if they come with you. don't fight it.... we belong together, as we were. _

No other options lay before him. And Trance was right; if he wasn't imprisoned in Kuja's body, he'd be detriment and worse to Gaia. But there was no way to do so.... He couldn't think of a way to get them into the same form again. 

No such spell existed...at least not in his power. Vivi had Osmose, and that was the closest.... But going into his own hell, as Trance had implied he would have to, couldn't be done with mana  _ or _ a new spell. It'd be cheating.

_ so you see. _

_ I wish I didn't.  _ His former, rebellious self had almost completely ended up in Trance as he existed now. Kuja was powerless to resist him.  _ But yes, I do. The rules exist for a reason. _

_ if you come, i won't have a reason to kill them. you know as much. _

He did, but he didn't. He hadn't had so very many reasons to do the things he did before the advent of Trance.... Nothing but fear, rebellion, the desire to live.

Maybe that had persisted into his doppelgänger. And with a will as strong as his, he couldn't predict the outcome, but liked none of the possibilities.

The door opened behind him. Smells of gysahl ale and opium threaded in...the one person who might understand, but wouldn't judge regardless. Maybe some sutras would help him concentrate on the task at hand.

"You didn't eat, kiddo."

He shook his head, backing away from the chest. "I don't really know what to do. I have to go on a journey of self discovery, Amarant...find out more about myself and why I'm here. I can't bring anyone.... It's not for them."

"Bet it's dangerous." A wall of solid human muscle pressed to his back. "The occasional period of self exile helps.... I bet I know where you're going."

"I can't  _ tell  _ anyone where I'm going." The knowledge bled through him. "I want to be alone for a little while."

"I'll get outta your head, then."

"I didn't mean now...." He turned around, buried his face to that muscled wall. "I need some help concentrating. Do you know any sutras that might help me?"

"A few. But if you're looking for calm and rest, you could probably use some of this." The monk slid one hand into the purse at his side and came up with a slender, burnished pipe. The hollowed piece at the end looked burned...at a closer glance, some black, sticky looking substance coated the inside of the tiny bowl. "Straight from Esto Gaza."

He smiled weakly. "And here I thought that was a parting smell. Treno's doesn't look like that."

"Nah, it's milder. The poppy this came from was watered with nothing but mana...damn thing got as big as your head." He placed a huge hand over Kuja's hair and ruffled it. "Look. I dunno where the fuck you're going, and if you can't let me know, I'm not gonna hold it against you. But you need to relax for once in your high-strung, aristocratic life and let your hair down...what's left of it, anyway."

"I don't know how high-strung I was before——," Here, the Genome sighed, “but I certainly am this evening. I need to do something ridiculously sybaritic for once to get my mind off things."

"A last shot before you go doing something dangerous, huh?"

He  _ really  _ wanted to tell someone. It was the height of unsafe to go traipsing around in places one didn't belong, doing who knew what, to satisfy the more sadistic and megalomaniacal side of oneself. And if he thought he was coming back from this, he had to be an idiot! So what was the stupidest thing he could think of? The least likely to actually help?

"Something like that." He turned around on his feet, facing Amarant. “This is major, and I actually  _ can't  _ inform anyone of the details. But I'm beginning to think even sutras and the finest opium on the planet wouldn't help me relax."

The human sagely nodded. "Doesn't look like it. You are fucked in the head."

"...Then how about making the body match?"

"Whoa now." Amarant spread his hands. "You are suggesting the last thing I ever thought you'd say. Are you all right?  _ Do  _ you need help?"

"I do," Kuja shook his head, “and I don't. I can't have it."

"Playin' a deadly game. If you lose, we die." All the necessary details but one. "And the rules dictate you can't tell anyone where you're going or get any help. Are you crazy? You're going off on this big mission, something world-ending, and you can't get help?"

He buried his face in his hands. "I don't know what else to do. I literally cannot have help or the people who accompany me will be killed. It's a suicide mission for possibly me and certainly everyone else."

"Sounds like the kind of thing  _ you  _ woulda done once upon a time."

"I know the villain's game all too well, Salamander. Once upon a time I had designs on escaping it. But just when I thought I'd freed myself from all that..., it seems I'm dragged back in by my heels, or perhaps my cock. I don't know what's going to occur."

"Maybe I can help you forget it, then. You wanted your body as fucked as your head? You got it, kiddo."

"It seems like the only thing that'd take my mind off this shit." He closed his eyes; one last contact might have to be made.

_ oh, don't worry yourself on my account. you've not broken any rules. _

_ Thankfully. But I'd wager you're enjoying this.  _ His head lifted at a gentle, burning trace through the air. That variety was indeed better than Treno's....  _ Fucked through on opium before I get to you...that isn't going to deter whatever you planned? _

_ oh no, kuja. i'm going to enjoy this immensely. you went to all the trouble to play my game correctly...i'd say a little reward is in order, wouldn't you? _

"You're thinkin' about something." Amarant's murmur cut through the haze in his head. "Everything all right in there?" 

A dreamy nod was all he could manage. It would be fine as soon as he forgot this confusing mess for a night. What did he have, two full days? One night, two days, was probably what Trance meant...he'd found Kuja during the first day. A bit steeper than most bargains, but as Amarant had mentioned, this was something Kuja would've actually done. He knew it all too well because it  _ was  _ him behind it, but in another form.

_ we're both the same mage in and out, but you've taken the higher of the roads. i don't care what anyone thinks of me. _

He'd lost that cavalier expression of self, the lack of controllable behavior...this would've been what he did in Burmecia, Cleyra, Alexandria.... He was literally going to stride into his personal hell, and if he emerged, it would be with his entire self, good  _ and _ bad. He'd have to complete himself to return to Gaia.

_ marvelous! i knew you were brilliant enough to figure this out. _

_ How we'll go about doing so is another matter entirely, Trance, you'd need enough mana in both of us to make it happen. An equal amount on either side and the right impetus.  _ That too was clearing up for him now, as he huffed opium and felt enormous human hands guiding him to the bed. “That's just wonderful...."

"I'll only go as far as you want me to. That body of yours is deadly."

"Fuck me, Amarant, let's not have things get complicated...." Complicated was on the other side of the Iifa Tree, and he didn't need any of it right now. “Whatever happens after that, we can sort it out when I get back. I shouldn't be gone for long at all."

"Here's hoping." But the sheets felt entirely too inviting on his back. He raised his hips for those hands, savored the slow pull of his leggings down and away——coarse kisses pressed up his thighs, drawing a moan.

_ oh, this is delicious. i'm really enjoying it. _

If he allowed the oncoming peril to shorten his vigor, it'd just be another thing it managed to ruin. Kuja resolved himself to forget his sadistic side for now, and just enjoy the bare moments of respite before it took him.

Which of his selves would win, he wondered? If he listened to the Qu and their sage but disconcerting wisdom, it was very simple:

The one he fed.

  
  
  


The night could not have gone by any faster. Before he knew it, it seemed he'd awoken in bed——one long arm slung over his chest, where Amarant had retaken the role he'd remembered in Treno. Back then, he'd just been standing outside the mansion, but now....

"I want to rehire you," he whispered.

One sleepy eye opened under a canopy of crimson dreadlocks.  _ "...Mmh?" _

"I said I want to rehire you...after I get back, I'll need a lot more help to see myself through all of this. I may not be able to live in Treno anymore, and even if I do, some sod's going to come looking for a fight. I need you back, Salamander.... Besides, Sisyphus fired you while I was away, and Zidane was the reason."

"Ah, c'mon. I'd work for you for free. I don't give a fuck about your money."

"I know that. But as long as I have it, I'll pay you triple what King was. Necron knows I won't be needing it for much else anyway. Whom could I ever commission again, for anything? My reputation has damned me."

"Eh." Amarant rose to sit up, knuckled his eyes free of their film. "Whatever you say, Anchorite." He certainly remembered who he'd really been working for. “Want me to help get you back to what  _ they _ considered normal, before the whole Brahne shit?"

He nodded. "Might help."

"It'll be good to know you have someone there, won't it? Feels like you've been lonelier than I get sometimes.... Though that had to be one of the best sutras I've dealt with in a while. When you get back we can work on the less carnal ones."

"I'd like that...very much."

  
  


-

  
  


_ He'd broken enough of them by now. Crystal forms in various states of destruction lay around——Trance had tried his hand at every one of them. The children had just annoyed him, Garnet's form had been too breakable from the start, and everything made to look like a Genome made him thirst even more for the real thing. _

_ Longest-lasting, thus far, had been the intolerably priggish knight. That crystal had surprisingly taken a lot of punishment...nearly everything he planned to do to Kuja, and it'd only broken when he decided to throw his weight around. The real Steiner would've snapped several ribs and howled like a dying man; the crystal one simply lost its head and collapsed in a heavy heap. _

_ He'd roasted a few of the ones made to look like Vivi——determining how to destroy a tiny mage was actually difficult. Smashing a crystal wasn't satisfying. Ultima bounced off the thing. And of course, no sound. The lone time he'd considered using it as he had the unreasonably large amount of Kujas, his flesh had crawled at even the idea. Nothing would've fit anywhere and it'd just have broken in half at the hip line. _

_ Besides, no face...that too was unsatisfying. He could at least depend on the crystal versions of Kuja to _ look  _ pained. Nothing but eyes in that golem-of-a-golem's head. Boring. _

_ “I can either make this more fun somehow, or I can make it quicker." What would open the portal behind Kuja and shove him backward into the dimension, Trance wondered? Mightn't it be enough mana in his own system for Trance to grab hold of? _

_ “He's not making this any fun. He needs to be stuffed full of mana; he was right. Of all the hells, he had to be right. But if he breaks the rules, he knows he'll be at a disadvantage...he's trying to figure out how to get here and stay alive."  _

_ Even the smallest drip of mana would be enough——unless he filled a crystal golem  _ of _ Kuja with the amount of manamortam in the mage's bones, and ordered it to summon him.  _ The calculations won't be easy——, _ He plucked a feather from his head,  _ but nothing I want ever truly is. _ Garland had had that piece of information right. _

_ And here Trance was, having drawn enough life force to exist from their master's central power unit...that charming blood-red gem. If Kuja knew.... _

_ If he knew, he'd punch through Trance's chest and crush the thing, killing them both. _

  
  


_ - _

  
  


"I still can't think of anything. I wish I could."

"Well, it could be worse. You already know what you're up against, Kuja, and whatever you do, you'll either fail miserably and leave us vulnerable to what it is, or you'll succeed——"

"And  _ still _ leave you vulnerable." The Genome angrily tossed another vellum behind him, smattered with enough equations to kill a Ragtime Mouse. "You don't quite understand, do you? You lot could die regardless of the outcome. If it's favorable, I'll come back, but you don't really want me back in the same state you fought me in. I won't be controllable, and I may be as malicious as I was before."

Amarant's heart splashed his bowels. He suddenly knew  _ exactly  _ what Kuja was up against. "God damn, kiddo.  _ That's _ what's going on."

"I can neither confirm nor deny it."

"Well, if we can figure out where you end up, you know you aren't going alone. And if you get there through a place we can already access, we're going to follow you. You don't have that kind of choice. We're gonna die anyway? Then fuck it, we're coming with you." What other options did they have, if Kuja was literally going to have to trip off to Terra through that dimension the planet had been trapped in?

He shook his head. "You  _ can't.  _ Everything's been planned for, including your presence. And I don't want my last act to be something that fucks Gaia sideways." Rising from his seat, he turned——face red from grief, though precious few tears had managed to escape. Poor bastard kept himself composed even in the face of his own death. Hadn't Trance Kuja gone absolutely batshit when told of his mortality?

Kuja wasn't overreacting because he  _ couldn't. _ The separation had left him sapped of the emotions he hadn't already had; everything he'd gotten here was real, and a sign that even he could mature. But what a fucked thing to think about. Kid got real emotions, actual feelings, and then had to lose his life to the sadist inside him?

"This is fucked," Amarant whispered. "I'm sorry."

"Me too, Salamander, but don't tell them a thing! I don't want them dying because of my lust for power. I don't want to be why  _ Gaia _ dies. I never wanted the job of destroying it to begin with. I loved this planet from the moment I stepped foot onto it." Now those tears flowed. His thin hands beat against the monk's chest, no stronger than any other noble's. “What do I do?"

_ you come to me now, kuja. he was smart enough to determine my plan...and the price you pay for it is two days of preparation. _

Amarant's bones shook with the reply. The whole room began to rattle. And that hadn't been  _ Kuja _ speaking in the room——but it couldn't have been different by even an octave. More as though his voice were warped, or multiplied....

"What the fuck is going on?!" It hadn't been the mage. His lips hadn't even moved. He'd been staring up in fear at the only one who knew this shit.

"I don't know," Kuja breathed, “b-but I think I broke the rules...." The floor under them began to crackle with energy. His hair lifted on end, bolts of mana jetting back and forth over his skin. A portal? How could he have opened it in a matter of milliseconds?

He  _ hadn't.  _ The truth scared Amarant more than Kuja ever had.

"——No!  _ Amaran——" _ That energy tore both his form, and his last struggle for words, in on themselves...and the Genome was simply  _ gone. _

But his clothes lay smoking on the floor.

  
  


_ - _

  
  


At last. He's here.

_ The glee fluttered through him, drawing him up on his toes——not now. He had to make everything perfect. That portal did what it was meant to; in place of the crystal Trance had manipulated to every inch and filled with precisely calculated energy, a naked and lightly smoking Genome. A last scent picked up...opium, mana, something similar to desert musk, and just the right amount of sweat.... Bottled fear. _

_ Certainly, he might've just given Kuja a great deal of manamortam charge. But if it'd been double what he had, their resurgence would be simple enough...and he could enjoy himself until then. _

_ He crept into the darkness——slipping away, enjoying the chaos for as long as he could before Kuja's blood stained his fingers. _

  
  


_ - _

  
  


_ "——t, get out of  _ here——" 

His scream echoed around him. He'd been ripped right out of his room, out of reality.... Even out of his clothes, Kuja realized with creeping rage. The only thing he saw as advantage here was the overdose of mana in his blood; his veins roared with it, lifted his senses to everything.

_ Find out where you are. It looks like Terra, but it could also be the Crystal World. And if it is, you're in a bit more trouble than you thought...the planet's manamortam is what's been thrown into you. He calculated exactly how much mana you're made of. _

Maybe he had...maybe he hadn't. If there was even the smallest amount Kuja had over his Tranced self, the higher concentration would win.

But in the opposite direction, that could also be true. He might lose his own form to something that barely had one to begin with. What had kept Trance here as long as he was? With no direction, and very little plans, the Genome walked...looking around, on the crystal-littered floor where some of it had begun to resemble faces.

Steiner's face here.... Half blown off. His host had definitely been expecting a party. And so many iterations of Vivi and Eiko. Even one of Quina, massive tongue like a flag, shot through with fractures but unbroken. As he walked, the faces were joined by bodies, and now Kuja had his true shock on the matter.

Most of them were tailed. Half of the tailed bodies had wide enough hips to be his. And those had been ruined in the most painful ways...by claws, teeth, everything else...weakly destabilizing, their loss of mana causing them to facet out into grotesque, crude manikins. Mockeries if anything.

He felt awful for those poor creatures. Barely brushing one with his tail found mana; Trance's, the kind that seared his bones. His own might be ice to that devil's.

_ Please forgive me. _ Osmose wouldn't work even if he had it, but touching them was more than enough. Mana loss buckled them into powder...he had a strategy, but it couldn't be a favorable one. Everything he could drain, Kuja did——backtracking all the way to the sight of Steiner's crystal abomination.

Among glittering dust and a sudden wind, he began to proceed...liking nothing here, wanting only to leave, but fully aware he couldn't. His personal hell.... There was one more horror he'd see before Trance, wasn't there? Terror came in threes.

He couldn't manipulate the crystal here. He could suck it dry of its mana, but he couldn't control it. What if that monster sent his own crystal forms after Kuja, or even one of——

His feet found something sharp. Wincing in pain, he knelt...and what he found shocked him. 

Black metal. Long-rusted, filthy...worn smooth in an edge that looked like it had been used to walk. He traced his fingers around the misshapen plane——lifting it to his face to look closer, though, told him what it was.

_ My own personal hell.... The end of it is right here. _

He remembered the stench of those boots as they'd kicked in his side, or stepped on his neck—— _ This,  _ he realized with metal in his quivering hand, _ is what Trance left behind of Garland after he killed the old man. I know where I am now. _

He looked far, far up...to where a rounded crag stood stark in bioluminescent blue. The very cliff he'd kicked Garland off.... And if he looked carefully, he might even find the rest of his old master. But did he want to? Would it answer his questions, or create more of them in his mind? And what was the weird sort of  _ absence _ he felt here?

_ The stone.... Not here. It's not here...Trance has it.... _

How much mana had Garland been made with? If he could figure it out, he might know how to solve this mess. Snarling, he ran off toward the beach...for more answers, as well as a last speech with that creepy old bastard.

  
  


_ - _

  
  


"He disappeared into thin fucking air, Zidane, and all we have is his clothes."

The little Genome traced his fingers over silk and velvet, shaking his head. "No. He couldn't've.... How did he just  _ disappear?!" _

"Trance," Garnet whispered behind them. "Kuja related to me how he couldn't understand it, how he'd felt as though he were separated. Don't you remember? It wasn't simply a misconstruction of power, everyone, he literally pulled himself in two. And with a high enough source of mana, his other self could've kept itself whole. Granted, it would have to use surrounding materials, something that would store those souls, but a weakened astral form of Kuja would've been able to migrate for a short time somewhere else, take control of something empowered...."

"And make himself a body." Zidane shook his head. "Something weak on Terra, that had just been owned to death, by Trance Kuja himself. His mana and its own would've still been stuck to it...."

They turned to look at him. He knew how Kuja's altered form had done it, he knew where they both were, but the mage had been right when he said no one could come.

The only person who could've opened that portal was Kuja himself, because it had been anchored to his mana. He'd created it, and Trance had grabbed him by the tail and pulled him all the way through...over a year later. "Guys, I know exactly what led Kuja to separate, and I also know how his Tranced self still has a body."

"You don't mean...." Amarant shook his head. "Well, fuck. That crusty old man got the last laugh after all."

"No, he didn't. Trance Kuja did——he usurped Garland's power, and now it looks like he's either going to kill Kuja with it and cease to exist completely, or Kuja's going to kick both their metaphysical asses and rip his way back out of the dimension with whatever's left of it in his veins."

Beatrix's face paled. "I don't suppose you know how it feels to have that man nearly crush you to death in his fairer form. He has to come back with something of maturity in him, or we'll have asked the worst monster Gaia's ever known, the creature that nearly ended us all, to return from the battleground and come to heel. We cannot do it."

"I've gotta believe there's something of a gentler side to him. I really do." Maybe Amarant and Freya looked weirdly comfortable with the idea, but at least someone agreed. Freya's face was redder than a gysahl, though, and Amarant wasn't much better. What the hell had happened? “I mean, with his actual emotions, his maturity, he broke free of Trance and saved our lives. Whatever's left of  _ that _ Kuja is the one we need to pray for."

"And root for," Eiko said quietly. "For everybody's sakes."

  
  


_ - _

  
  


_ gentler side to him _

He lifted his head.  _ Where are you, you bastard? Toying with me again?  _ He'd found nearly all of Garland, and only confirmed the worst: the stone he used for power, the thing that'd had his  _ soul _ inside of it, was gone. Once more, Kuja would be facing Garland...but that hate was now in his own stronger form. He had to face himself and everything he loathed.

_ with his actual emotions, his maturity, he broke free of trance and saved our lives _

...That wasn't Trance, nor could it have been manipulated. He clung to that voice, the way it somehow amplified in this dimension.... No wonder they couldn't get here. He was literally in the same location, just Terran space——if they could shunt themselves through Gaia's, they'd get here. But no one had the might to do that, and focusing his mana through Vivi would've been the only solution.

“To do that," he agonized, “I'd literally end up wasting him to ashes." The little mage would be a solution to the problem with his manamortam, but nothing else would remain of the person he'd been. His soul, and all, would end up inside Kuja and used to build the gate.

It'd be built on and with Vivi's life force...not an option he would take. So he could only go forward and do this himself.

_ for everybody's sakes _

Eiko. Child of a land he'd destroyed on his own...he could've told Garland to stuff himself, to find some other fool. He'd already instilled Meltigemini and lowered Brahne's guard before Kuja's arrival.... And then the mage himself had had to come in and screw her up further.

Something moved behind him——not of earth or sky, no element one could see. But he closed his eyes and felt it.... Trance had reduced his form by one soul, to be able to absorb Garland's.

_ Deliberately, I'd wager. The one I should feel the worst for, that I did the most to.  _ Wide hands closed over his shoulders; he wouldn't see them, but he'd feel them all the same. "I did not expect to see you here, Your Majesty."

_ And you. Your face was not what I thought Heaven looked like. _

"This isn't Heaven, Brahne, it's Hell. Mine...and only getting out of here could help either of us in any way. I humbly apologize for my informality, but given the circumstances, royal pomp won't aid us either."

_ Agreed. The creature you became is what we face.  _ She didn't speak much else, and she wasn't precisely the ally he thought he'd have here...but he took up a handful of crystal dust, and blew it in her direction.

Manamortam bound itself to atomic ether. Sparkles hung in the air. And from where he stood, he had to admit it looked a great deal like Brahne.... Still holding her fan, a scowl caught on that round face. "Seeing you like this makes me weary of myself." However, he lowered himself to one knee.

_ The state of dress I craved to see you in while I was living.  _ A caressing smile stole through those sparkles. _ What a pity I have to see it now.... The emperor has no clothes, does he? _

"No. The emperor is quite naked and wants no empire of any kind."

_ Let us go and find this monster.  _ Her voice thundered in his ears, her fan held out as had been her wont. _ The beast who would cast a Queen's soul aside and waste the beauty of it.... I want to see him die, Kuja. See that you win, and destroy his wretched form in front of me! _

"I shall do so, Your Majesty." Even in Hell, there was the softest cool breeze.

  
  


_ - _

  
  


_ "Oh yes. Leaving him the one scrap of energy that could do him no service...." Cloistered on Garland's throne in the heart of Pandemonium, enjoying the way that old man's soul thrashed and beat itself against its fleshly prison, Trance grinned. "Now isn't it ironic, Master? You wanted to take my soul from my body and replace it with your own. Even if Kuja wins, you won't have a moment of control...not with two sides of a consciousness that desperately hates you. I could surrender, become more of a parasitic energy..., but why? Kuja's leeching the life out of every space of Terra he can take. He'll destroy our world, as you feared he would." _

you cannot have it, kuja! you think you have separated yourself, _ that blighted energy seethed.  _ you are still the same genome, inside and out! i placed the limit upon you for this reason alone! you will destroy us all, and with your foolishness your race will be no more.... you cannot think emotion alone will give you control. the first time someone angers you, you'll kill them. they'll cry for your blood.

_ "The Iifa Tree was the limit." Trance remembered those books, the desperate idea Kuja had been on the fringes of before ending up here. "If he'd read just a chapter further on, he would've discovered what kept him divided from sanity and emotions.... In the rear of his brain, half through the dura mater. You really didn't want him to live. You created him just to torture him." _

you're merely a dissociation, kuja. you managed to project half of your soul away from you, and if you can't get it back without destroying your body, you'll have done my work for me.

_ A burst of rage clenched Trance's hand into a fist, around the crystal he'd been watching Kuja with. Shards sprayed over the ground. "I will not let  _ you,"  _ He bit out the word, “have any governance over me. Gaia will not be taken by the thing you think I am.... It will endure, you old fool. And I in my beauty and unconditional love will guard it from everything you think  _ you  _ still are." _

you'll kill us all, you insolent child! release me this instant!

_ "I hardly think you're in a position to demand anything." But Garland's words presented a problem. The madder Kuja went, the worse chance for either of them...he had to see himself as he was, and accept his own reality. _

_ He'd hidden his tail for twenty-four years. Acceptance was not a virtue he  _ had.

_ Trance's confidence began to waver. Just as Kuja had learned before being pulled through to here, it looked as though he'd have to recalculate. _

  
  


_ - _

  
  


"I just don't understand what made Gaia so attractive to him. Had he simply not possessed the amount of fuel to reach another world?" Telling Brahne the truth of the matter had lessened the weight of it on his soul; he couldn't have told anyone on Gaia, but she wasn't there with them. "It already existed. It already had mastery, souls...Eight soul cycles before it became what it is now. All those humans ended up dead, their bodies turned into that——" He diverted her attention with a hand, "the  _ Last Dungeon.  _ It held so much manamortam...mostly from the Mysidian genocides, mind...that when he began to create me, he had enough to hammer my very bones out of it."

_ But your effeminate form was no accident. He made you a confusing beauty because Gaia itself needed to be seduced. Not once had I thought of you as some threat, and then you fired Bahamut's might on the Red Rose. _

He knelt there in the path, sighing. His eyes began to water.

"Yes, I did, and you didn't deserve any of that. You were merely doing as you had to do to defend your people. If my mana hadn't infected and ruined your brain, you wouldn't have been vulnerable to my will."

_ Your creation was not planned upon...nor was it anything found on Gaia. Your manamortam surely contained elements that made the planet weaker to you than you to it.  _ She passed him in her diaphanous splendor and pointed further on.  _ What is that? _

"Pandemonium, Brahne. It's where Garland used to live...and the heart of Terra itself, if you don't count the crystal I blew in half. There had to be enough manamortam in my world to merge it halfway with the Crystal World.... But if that's so, I can't destroy it at all. Destroying Terra would destroy Gaia."

_ Perhaps you aren't meant to destroy anything...only renew it. _

"Renewing this place would require you knowing just what I am, and why renewal could be dangerous. I wanted to rule both planets with what I thought was love. In reality, I would've become a despotic warlord who'd only submit to my own will...." Which, really, was the sense of self that'd broken. The rational had been fled by the irrational.

He was here, but he'd also been here the whole time. If he'd stopped to center himself even once after being borne from the tree, he would've realized the truth of the matter.

He'd gone insane when he Tranced.

_ I have time, Kuja. It may be as interesting as the time you wasted a lich to nothing in Evil Forest.... Whatever was in that bottle? _

"Its heart, the power that kept it anchored to its bones. Atomic manamortam. Not really a soul, more the opposite idea of one...the thing that gives black mages their uniquely nebulous appearance. When faced with a negative power, most people flee. Some people bathe in it.... And truly, that was who I was before I met you. Out of fear, rage, and the desire to see my creator dead, I became the man who killed you. You were not my target, but you stood in front of him...and Heaven help me, I could not tear myself away from the power."

_ You wanted him dead...if he had not been killed, Gaia would now be forfeit. _

"Garland has no way to become the man he was anymore. Even if Trance has his power, his soul is shackled down. What I would have to do...." He shook his head, despising the answer he had to his very bones. 

“What I will have to do, Brahne, is somehow seduce  _ myself." _

_ - _

_ His calculations hadn't been the only ones to learn as much. Fitfully pacing in front of their old master's throne, Trance closed his hands into fists——shaking his head, unwilling to believe what he'd learned. He couldn't simply torture the knowledge from Kuja, or he'd be killed in the aftermath, and the planet would be infected with Garland's manamortam. His will would ultimately be done if they couldn't agree. _

_ "You're laughing at me, aren't you? Foolish old fuck! If we come together, and our manamortam outpaces yours, you'll die! Your soul will rot like so much cabbage! You'd better hope Kuja hasn't figured this out, or this will be the last moment of glory you know!" _

there is no glory in what you seek, kuja. you will grow old and die, just as i did.... you are not immortal, and you can never be. nothing exists forever.

_ "There's always someone like me to end anything that wants to," Trance muttered. "A leech, a virus, a walking disease of people.... The Baron, in older years. The One-Winged Angel, in another. Shin-Ra Electric Power Company, even! So many of these ages ended because humans perceived themselves as gods. Where are they now, Garland?!" _

nothing is immortal, kuja. if you could have accepted it when i first informed you, none of this would be happening now. you might've died beautifully in the bottom of the tree. you might've lived, if they'd gotten to you in time. but you are neither alive nor dead now, and when my will takes hold you will have never existed.

_ "...But that would mean I'm erasing myself from time." _

if you destroy my manamortam, or consume it, you will end up reversing gaia to the point i had not existed. doing so will remove you, zidane, the other genomes.... your race will not exist, thanks to your foolishness.

_ "Thanks to our desire to destroy you." What worse could there be? He had created a paradox in which he'd either become Garland or lose his life completely? Zidane and the other Genomes, as well? No one would know of his beauty? _

No one would ever know who I was.... Vivi Ornitier would have never existed. Gaia might be safe, but we would be stripped of this reality completely. We would never be real in any capacity again. _ Trance sank into the throne, disturbed.  _ We wouldn't exist.

so you see. simply surrender.

_ "I won't," he raged. "I can't! Not to you! You're not even a person anymore, just a soul trapped in a...." His hand covered his chest. "...A gem, unable to move or even consume enough manamortam to exist in another form.... You can't create the paradox because you don't have the energy. In this one——" _

_ In that form he could do nothing. And ultimately, it would be the only way. Garland could not  _ be _ destroyed. The one thing they'd wanted since they'd been of a singular mind could not come to pass. _

_ He rose from that reeking metal, unable to even look at it anymore. His heat had smoked the biological matter from the thing. "What a nuisance. And if he's seen the crystal, and all the things I did to it...." Shaking his head, Trance madly laughed. _

_ "I don't have a chance in Hell of success, do I?!" _

_ - _

"What happened, guys?"

Amarant turned around in Kuja's room, where he'd been speaking with Freya. "Whaddya mean, 'what happened'?" Beside him, her cheeks flamed red again. "And don't you say a word about it, rat-face, or I'll have your tail in a sling."

"I mean, what happened? You guys had funny looks on your faces when I said there had to be a gentler side to him. Did he do something weird, or did  _ you?" _ Zidane padded into the room, looking them over. "Somebody has to come clean here. I'm worried about him, dammit."

"Not me," Freya denied with swatting paws. "I had nothing at all to do with it.... Just rather bumbled into it when I was attempting to find out what was wrong with Kuja. I saw something I shouldn't have, then left. Can't tell you any more than that because I don't  _ know  _ any more than that."

The Genome's head snapped around on his neck...he sized Amarant up there, gave him the most suspicious look the monk had seen on anyone. "...Oh my God. Y-You bastard. Did you actually——When he was in a vulnerable mental state, you actually f——"

"He thought he was gonna die, monkey-boy. What'd you think he was gonna say? He's the one who brought it up!"

Zidane's face, too, was redder than hell now. "But my brother. You went and fucked my child-minded, problematic, lacking any impulse control, emotionless older brother. His forebrain isn't even finished growing, Salamander. What the  _ fuck  _ is wrong with you?"

"Nothing. When you got me fired from that job in Treno, I'd been working for  _ him. _ We were discussing the details of my reemployment when he got sucked out of the room, by that furry red son-of-a-bitch." Amarant shook his head. "But hey, yeah. Get mad at me all you want. I went in to help him, we spent the night together, he bared his soul to me over this bullshit he went through, and I was the one he attempted to tell. I was the one he wanted to help him."

"He probably knew no one else could."

"Yeah. I'd've barely been able to give him enough Chakra to stay alive and toast that bastard. Or we'd be practicing sutras by the side of that damn river in Terra and waiting for Trance to walk up. Either way, it's not a case of someone unable to make his own decisions. You need to  _ accept  _ Kuja for who and what he is, as well as the fact he's not going to submit to anyone. He doesn't need an older brother. He doesn't fuckin' have one."

Zidane's tail sagged with the rest of him. "And here I am acting like an asshole. Thinking I can govern him any more than Garland did. He probably got enough power as Trance to pull himself back through to Terra because of  _ how _ he was treated. Everyone has thought Kuja needs to listen to them.... What if he doesn't need to listen to anyone but himself?"

"He'd be the first individual with that kind of self-awareness. And if he could master that kind of control over his own self, hell, he'd be the smartest person on the goddamn planet. Running away from everyone else and holing himself up in Treno's auction house was what he tried to do.... He may just have to accept some things of his own."

"So...." The thief sank down onto his brother's bed, sighing. "...There aren't any wet spots on this thing, right? Because when he gets back, he might need a bath and some clean sheets."

  
  


-

  
  


The river. He'd never stopped to look at it before, with all the bodies he'd found in it lately.... Unable to accept his limits was how Trance had endured. Accepting his own was what Kuja had been on the path to when he'd been brought here. But he hadn't even been able to listen to the rules, and in his need to be independent he'd doomed himself.

_ You've gone terribly silent,  _ Brahne said behind him, matter-of-factly.  _ Tired? _

"No. Just thinking...." He lowered his hand to the water, stroked his fingers through it. The quiet trickle almost made him happier, somehow...maybe sitting here on the rocks, amidst the sound and chill, would help for a while. Something had to.

_ We don't have much time. _

"We have enough, Your Majesty. Take a moment of rest...I've been walking non-stop and need one. Besides, silence would do me some good." Carefully he crossed into the river and seated himself——on a rock covered in lichens, some of the few vestiges of life on Terra now.

Silence, flowing water. He recalled the gentle smells Amarant had brought into his room.... The warmth of his hands, the slow, deliberate way he'd pleasured a body aching for renewal, for a way to cope with what he was becoming. Not everyone could change their circumstances. Some people had to live with them, and in defiance of their birth or the rude nature of it, managed to find true happiness.

Amarant was one of these. He used to sit outside the mansion, raise his arms to his sides...cross his legs over one another and slowly drone. It'd been strange to look at, at first. But his own legs found the position easily, and his palms tilted upward for the light he'd been born in.

Inward breath——Amarant, his smell.

Exhaled breath——The calm Kuja felt, somehow, when he'd been there.

He dredged up another, treated that face and memory in kind. Vivi, the times he'd been not a mage but an adorable little imp, the only word he could manage:

_ 'Mama.'  _

Poor boy didn't know he was right. Kuja took more than a cycle of breaths here, remembering how he'd hidden that tail, the facial features under both cloth and Lich's Heart..., unable to accept his death, but able to give him a new life. Whether one wanted it to be or not, acceptance was the end of something. Sometimes the beginning of another.

Accepting her death had led Brahne here, and him taking responsibility of his flaws and deeds had led her to stay. It had been a beginning.

More memories——some good, many bad. But even those, he struggled with himself to know why they'd been necessary, and in seeing the alternatives he was able to come to terms with them. The bad flitted away in the wake of what was still here.

Kuja saw himself as he'd been, as he was now, and in all those deeds he had a thread of congruity. He'd been unable to accept Garland as his creator, himself as a flawed, mortal thing.... And now he opened his eyes to see a fleck of scarlet, like a single drop of blood, wandering down the riverbed.

_ Ah well.  _ He knew this would come eventually.  _ If I die......, I die. _

-

_ None of those crystal forms had blocked his way. All gone, evaporated, nothing but dust if anything. His toes spread in glittering sand——how lovely, how beautiful those crystals were now. Infinitesimal grains that cast the blue from above all the way down the shore. And at the end of that long, twinkling trail, the Genome he most wanted to see had placed himself like a flawless shrine in the midst of rocks and cool river spray. _

_ He looked up as Trance approached; it seemed this meeting had been expected. Or desired, by the half-hooded eyes that watched him, glistening with power, daring him to mar even an inch of that alabaster skin. His clawed fingers clenched at his sides...He  _ couldn't.

_ "We haven't truly changed," Kuja said softly there. _

_ "No, it doesn't seem that way. I don't think we can——the elements of our desire would combine to make a world-ending alchemy. You know where his power came to rest, Kuja, I know you feel it." _

_ Those pale shoulders shrugged. "And? He cannot be destroyed...but what power does he have now? He refuses to accept his soulbound state, and wouldn't like being trapped in his own gem any more than your frame. He couldn't live with the idea that Terra would be gone...nor could his creators. The very basic idea that  _ some things cannot be changed _ seems to have eluded him." _

_ "You cannot lose me," Trance murmured. "I am the element that gives you a power of your own. Without me, you'd never survive for your inability to trust yourself." _

_ "And without me——," Chaos, how that lissome sylph could speak, “you would be hounded and threatened for every moment you breathed. People would call you a monster, and by Necron, they'd be right. You'd have no balance."  _

_ “Where do we find it? What can we unite on...that itself is strong enough to keep us alive? Our hatred for Garland? Because if we can't destroy him...." _

_ "We aren't what he hates the most." Slowly Kuja stood, slipped away from the rocks. "We never were. But dividing ourselves like this won't help a moment of it...and only together can we see the truth of what we are. What is death? Do you know?" _

_ "The end." _

_ "Incorrect." The real Genome shook his head——turned away, headed for the falls some distance behind them. "When you understand, you'll know why our purpose was a double-edged sword...and why we're his largest threat. Come with me if you want to live," he called behind him, likely as an afterthought. Hells, he might've been teasing. In either case, it was utterly, maddeningly attractive. _

_ Even with his back turned, Kuja wasn't vulnerable to Trance anymore. Nothing he could do would so much as hurt the reality he had yet to face, the smaller yet lovelier form that would only be breakable as long as he allowed it to be broken. He couldn't weaken his host any more than he already had. _

_ Behind him, the late Queen's ether released its dust; she might've come to the understanding sooner than either of them. _

  
  


-

  
  


Why he hadn't thought of this before...he had no clue. Sutras were Amarant's forte mainly because of why he had to use them. Living in the slums, with the constant possibility of someone killing him.... He used chants, mantras, to keep his mind working while his body faced the inevitability of death. And he worked his body so his mind could accept it as well. What a hardy soul.

Behind him, another such made its way up the rocks, following the inexorable pull. Once he'd given himself space to think, he'd learned the best outcome for both of them...and the gem in Trance's chest couldn't be destroyed. He could bind the two of them with the same thought, perhaps, the same will.... And then, once released, Garland's soul would continue its own existence, in a place he might've known he'd end up.

His manamortam couldn't be released on Gaia, nor on Terra. And if Kuja absorbed it he'd erase himself from existence. A final opportunity presented itself, one that might be hard to achieve...but as he'd made the bargain as a single entity, he could fulfill it as one.

"I'm pleased you're here," he said quietly to Trance, who had followed him the whole way with no sign of flagging. How Kuja wished he could say the same.

He'd seen the destruction to those statues, the Genomes sapped into dead husks. If he couldn't trust himself, he'd never be able to go home. But if he trusted himself, and he turned out to be as deceitful as he feared he was, he'd die...and so would Gaia. The only thing he could do was to make his final bid, to explain to Trance just why they were created and how death was not simply an evil all life feared.

Death was the solace, the acceptance a being had when they recognized their own limitations. And all Kuja could do was hope his other self would understand. With the clawed hands, his sharper teeth, the nearly added foot of height——to say nothing of the hundred pounds of muscle he had to his advantage, the Genome would have to present the one thing he didn't have.

Control. And damned if that wasn't the  _ last _ thing Trance wanted.

Claws sifted through his hair from behind. His alter was not only a stronger one in form, but where he had no control was where Kuja could win.... What was the one thing he'd thought to be the stupidest idea he'd ever had? Being claimed by Amarant in the shambles he'd begun to make of his room? And Trance had teased him the whole way, much like a voyeur, enjoying every inch of the scene before him.

"You're tired of watching," he husked. "It's time you had your fun, isn't it?"

"If we have to be together, I'm not leaving the opportunity wasted. You can't trust yourself as you are...."

"And you couldn't bear being hunted like a monster. You want to be adored." Kuja gave himself leave there——managing, he thought, a little bit of himself from his control. Perhaps a bit of his natural manamortam from his frame. And where Trance held him in thrall, he inhaled...gasping on the other scents of him, his mind's equivalent exchange. More testosterone. Stronger pheromones, almost a spicy smell. 

A longer, harder nose pressed to his neck, savoring the gentler sweetness. It had to be why everything from gargants to Zaghnol had chased him down...and here, a direr beast than both sought his frame. If he accepted, he might die.

If he didn't, they all would.

"Trust me," that fiery devil whispered, the incubus with as many muscles as Amarant and far more feathers on his frame. "Give yourself over."

"Prove to me you aren't a monster." His hand closed over Trance's. "Do that...and you will have me for anything you want in this realm. If you can give me the safety I can't give myself...."

"Garland wanted to kill this." Jealously those arms wrapped around him. "He wanted to ruin every inch of this, leave it struggling for life...."

"You almost did as well. That was something you had to leave behind on the way here.... You and I have the same mind. You're not a fool by any means; the calculations only took a while longer for the uncontrollable lust."

Controllable now, perhaps, but not by much. He faltered on the slippery rock face and smashed into Trance's immovable form. Where they stood separate, the air between them quivered...not for long, just enough to tell him his choice was the right one. The etheric charge was breaking down between them.

"I can't...," he managed, “I need it.... Please. Give yourself over. We haven't much time if we're going to do this at all."

"You know something I don't...." But whatever it was, Kuja wouldn't think long over it. He didn't need to. He pointed beneath the falls, behind, where a place known to both of them had nearly been hidden forever. "The water was so restful here."

"The first place we hid from him."

"We wouldn't have been found at all if not for the shift...he dammed it up to find out where the mana flow was coming from, and found us just bathing in it...."

"We were alone then. Later the others started to come, and he left them there.... It seemed he only wanted to torture us. He couldn't go through this space as it was. He wouldn't let us have anything...." Trance pressed his face to Kuja's hair, sighed into it.  _ We only ever had each other, and we didn't even know it.... _

"But we're here now, in a place he promised us we'd never see again." He ducked beneath the spray, led his doppelganger on. "He can't touch us anymore. He hasn't any limbs to do so."

_ He hasn't any power to do so. We'd never let him. _

"Terra wasn't his. He didn't create it, only damned it with his miscalculated work.... He almost killed an entire planet for the fact he couldn't accept his mistake. He wanted a new one."

_ He doesn't have us anymore. He can't have you anymore,  _ Trance insisted heatedly.  _ I won't let him.... _

The path they took had been worn smooth by many Genome feet...but the deepest and darkest of prints still fit the smaller man's. Lust itself urged Kuja on, followed without a pause, there where the spray cooled them from outside and a canopy of vines had been hung. Even in its decay the weave held strong; deep blue, drenched in mana. And from outside, the light limned their bodies in ways no sun ever could.

Kuja slipped into the maze of vines, found its heart...strong, easily enough to hold not only their weight but the cliff's. Softer here, blooming with flowers as pale as his skin that warmed and perfumed the air....

_ It's like this place has become a living shrine to us,  _ Trance whispered.

Scarlet berries hung in clutches here; not grapes, he didn't think, but he reached for one and savored the sweet-spicy taste. “Like all the mana we held in either direction shaped the land around it." He turned with a handful of the tiny fruits, to press them to those angular violet lips. "If you will come to me, if we'll be as we're meant to, we'll do it here...and damn that old cretin to the hell he deserves."

_ Let me touch you——let me touch us....  _ That hot gentian tongue tasted his fingers.  _ Before we return to one form, I need to experience you.... _

"I never did get to feel these muscles from the outside." His self-love was returning in spades. "Stand still...."

_ Down,  _ Trance ordered,  _ into all those sweet blooms.... This will be the only moment we have. I want to know everything....  _ Longer hands than his urged him down into the vines, to where the scents and sounds enveloped him. And above him, the body he'd defied creation to obtain...He turned over onto his back, reached for downy muscles that had already begun to perspire. Manamortam leaking from that perfect frame, those godly limbs that would soon be no more.

A strange kind of grief touched him. If it could be this way forever.... But accepting himself in every sense, all of him, was the key to absolution, to completion beyond them.

Those lips whispered over his neck, down his belly.... Perfection in only his frame, here, away from him in the world they loved and hated. Kuja quivered beneath the knowing touch...smoother hands than any he'd felt, long nails skating over his thighs. Trance adored him to every inch——and stranger still, for what he'd seen. Those frames had looked so haunted.

Reality was here. Sanity was barely out of their reach. His fingers found those mana-threaded vanes, tugged; the man possessed raised his legs over those wide shoulders. Image, ephemeral lover he was...soon only to be a memory. 

Mind and soul united. Lips like a blaze closed over him, sucked him to the hilt...he wept with need, knowing it could only be once. And so many of those blooms rained down on his frame, disappeared into a strong fist to be crushed. The beast assuaged itself, ruined such loveliness.... And flower-stained, questing fingers seized him tightly closed around them. It burned and froze, that height. He reached peaks he'd never seen, his body at the mercy of that mouth....

_ Now..., I need you now....... _

"Take me, then," he raggedly cried. "If it can only be once, make it an ecstasy we never forget——"

Lords, but he would never forget that thrust. One moment, one motion, and they were lovelocked irretrievably, his body giving way to itself, his mind wobbling.

_ He opened his eyes.  _

_ No more did Trance loom over him——his sight now thralled his own soft frame. With need unrivaled he cupped that silky face...drew closer, outside looking in. _

_ His eyes had begun to mist. Carefully he wiped them with the pads of his thumbs, kissed his own trembling lips. _

_ "Does it hurt you?" _

_ A weak nod. But his face had flamed pink, his body as cool as the falls behind them.... A sickening, rusted chill inside his chest reminded him of what they both had to banish.  _

"Let me take it away," _ he pleaded.  _ "Let me take him away from you...." _ Softer fingers than his pressed between his ribcage..., easily passed through. The unstable quiver drew them back.  _

_ "Not now. Not until we've learned...." _

"I trust you. I always should have."  _ His perfect form.... So tender, so lovely. Flowers in early spring. The twittering of songbirds. The first green shoots of life in barren soil. A child's laughter.... All of these and more were not as beautiful as Kuja. And Gaia had these, but without him, it would not be complete.... Garland could watch and be robbed of these joys forever. Kuja would not be. _

_ "I live you. I breathe you. I will never allow any harm to come to you.... Not even that which I cause." Those lips, silken as roses...sweetest breaths flowing behind them into his mouth. His limbs, his soft arms and legs, rising to encapsulate him with every deep thrust. Even the sweat on his skin...mana, not manamortam, a nectar he sucked freely as he loved him. The quake inside him could no longer stop. He would know every ecstasy here, and then he would see it in his dreams. He lifted, thrust, melding further every second.... Watching those lashes flutter, hood, squeeze tight—— _

"Can't,"  _ he heard from that gasping, dewy mouth, a young, feminine bleat he barely believed was his.  _ "Can't h-hold.... Cuhhh——"  _ Stifled into a kiss, the last they'd ever share.... How did he see himself  _ and  _ feel his own thrusts now? What made the sensations meld together, erotic vibration inside a gradually dissipating frame? Why did not only his manamortam but the room seem to melt? _

_ And in the fading light...where was he now? _

  
  


-

  
  


It was dark. But Garland had once said to him, both the end and the beginning were dark. Life began with it, death ended with it. And even death was not an end.

Kuja blinked where he was, stretched his arms; the same form he had remembered from his youth. No scarlet down anymore, no firm and overwrought muscles.

Only darkness before him, and behind him.... 

A final visage, the boundary to himself..., the darkness of eternity. Where he always knew he'd end. The unreal power he'd known of since he'd learned what eidolons even  _ were.  _ He had not been Garland's worst mistake, nor his direst threat...only the vehicle to what his creators feared most.

_ «you have been here before, and so you are again. i must now ask you why.» _

"Because you want to know if I learned anything." Kuja lowered his head. He had, in fact, but it didn't make him feel any better. The knowledge of what had been could never leave him. "I was torn apart for a reason."

Necron would only confirm this with a nod. His arms unfolded, showed his massive hands——tiny crimson  _ something  _ in the left palm, shining pale feather in the right. 

_ «before you lies a choice. you must make it with fully freed will, and when you have, our bargain will have been completed.» _

"A choice."

_ «one will exist away from you eternally. the other will be consumed. for the good of this world, you must choose.»  _ Those hands lowered——Garland's ruby lay in the left.  _ «touch what will be surrendered to my will...the other will persist.» _

"Garland," He shuddered there, "his soul will either exist, or mine will...." But if he chose himself, his creator would be destroyed. Time did not exist in Necron's space....

_ Vivi...The others, all the Genomes...They would never be. Poor innocent creatures.... _

Zidane had had faith in him, in defiance of everyone else. He could've lost everything he held dear, only to save his brother.... He could've died in the thrice-blasted Iifa Tree, right next to Kuja!

_ But I will miss him.  _ He wiped away a tear; he knew what he had to do now. He only prayed they'd understand.

_ «the hour grows short. there lie no more.» _

"Then...." Kuja gathered what last courage he could, and slowly touched a finger of Necron's right hand.

_ «are you certain?» _

"I am." He thought of Vivi, of those poor souls he'd ruined...even Brahne herself. But had he not  _ been, _ had he not tried to save Gaia from his creator, hope might still have been found. There would be another Kuja, perhaps. Or some other young Genome would see the planet for how beautiful it truly was, and bring that evil to heel.

He had done his part...he would have to accept that of himself. The bad, the good, what else he had been——he had lived, and longer than many who deserved more. Whether he'd wasted it was no one's fault but his.

_ «we accept the bargain. come, child, sleep.... you have traveled too far, seen too much. but do you regret?» _

"Some things cannot be changed. It took too long to learn that for myself." He looked at that heavy palm, the feather gone.... Maybe he had been fortunate to give himself up. For once, the choice to surrender had been his. "My own personal hell. If I'd only stopped to consider it."

_ «the dark and light are relative,»  _ Necron returned as Kuja slowly climbed into his palm.  _ «eternity always knows of both.»  _ His hand drew close, hiding the Genome from all——the other simply released Garland's gem, into the endless nothing from where they had come.  _ «sleep. no harm can come to you again.» _

Here, in this space, he was immortal . . . .

  
  


-

  
  


_ "Hey! H-Hey, Captain, I found something——" _

Vines...Dust. Moist, stagnant air. Dry, awful rattle coming to the barest breaths he could take. His body wouldn't move....

_ "C'mon, guys, get down here! Captain Steiner——I-I think you want to see this first——" _

  
  
  
  
  
  


an end . . . or a beginning

**Author's Note:**

> This was largely a play on the insanity and perceived dissociation Kuja suffers in the game.
> 
> Yes, I'm aware he happens to be male. The idea of Garland modifying him after an accidental reproduction (i.e., the cloning Genomes endure in Bran Bal, but chemically induced) made enough sense for the greater androgyny he has in FFIX vs. Dissidia. Headcanon as to why Vivi's different from the others is a little tweak I'm fond of. A few others will be evident in the other Nocturne stories when I get them up and running.
> 
> Zidane's a bit protective, but it seemed like it'd go that way when he got Kuja out and away from it all.
> 
> I meant this to be like a physically expressed form of DID, where he literally split away from himself. (How frightening would that be in real life? Probably damn terrifying.) Kuja in a muted mental state, having to face the insanity he killed Garland with...yeah, he'd be absolutely bugnuts if he had to actually do it.
> 
> And I agree, the crystal forms are indeed creepy. That's where we get the agalmatophilia warning.


End file.
